Chapter I

[1]Dr. Phelps goes on to say, “Yet the greatest of these, that grace
which above all else vitalizes a true hymn, is that which makes it
true—its fidelity to the realities of religious experience.”

[2]“A hymn must have a beginning, middle, and end. There should be a
manifest graduation in the thoughts, and their mutual dependence
should be so perceptible that they could not be transposed without
injuring the unity of the piece; every line carrying forward the
connection, and every verse adding a well-proportioned limb to a
symmetrical body. The reader should know when the strain is
complete, and be satisfied, as at the close of an air in music.”
(James Montgomery.)

[3]Dr. Parks, back in 1857, remarks: “That is not always the best
church song which sparkles most with rhetorical gems. There are
spangled hymns which will never excite devotional feeling.”

[4]Sung at President McKinley’s funeral.

[5]Greece never had a sacred book, she never had any symbols, any
sacerdotal caste organized for the preservation of dogmas. Her
poets and her artists were her true theologians. (Renan, in
_Studies in Religious History_.)

[6]“Even when deeds and events of an innocent and pure character are
thus sung, there is nothing more of spiritual worship in it than
in the recitation of an epic poem. The singer confesses no need,
asks no blessing, reveals no yearning, expects no response. There
is no communion of thought and feeling, no aspiration for purity,
no laying hold of moral strength.” (Rev. G. O. Newport, a
missionary in India, quoted in _The Hymn Lover_.)